Tense for All Time

"Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am."(John 8:58). This declaration of Jesus in John’s Gospel from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today is increasing the case for the religious authorities to condemn Him as one possessed by a demon, a blasphemer and not the prophet or Messiah which is the hope of the crowds. It is a statement of Jesus nature. Being in past and present simultaneously is “outside the time”. It is timeless and infinite. It is the fullness of our experience of an indwelling Spirit which can move from memories to desires and sometimes leave us confused as to our time. Our glimpses of being timeless are grounded by a breath and a heartbeat which are now. Ironically, our passport to the timeless is only through the now. Our Spirit in the words of the psalmist desires to “Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his presence continually!” The Covenant as Abram experiences, recounted in Genesis, continues. The infinite becomes finite and humanity becomes what it is, the Body of Christ, in the timeless transcendence of the Eucharistic sacrament. I am is so we are.